Will a legendary Swiss route return to the calendar?: Ski stars go crazy over race cancellations

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SRF expert Didier Plaschy will be convicted this winter for making false statements! Why? The Valais resident, who won two World Cup slaloms within three weeks in 1999, coined the phrase: “Unlike the three other alpine disciplines, slalom always works!”

But in the past three months alone, three World Cup slaloms in Val-d’Isère (Fr), Bansko (Bul) and Kranjska Gora (Slo) had to be canceled. Armand Marchant, who was the first Belgian to reach the top 5 in a World Cup competition in 2020, is therefore launching a frontal attack on the leadership of the International Ski Association via Instagram: “I cannot remain silent,” the 26-year-old wrote on its social media channels. «I’m not one of those athletes who often speaks out. But I can’t remain silent,” he begins with his “Chropfleerete”.

“The sport is going in the wrong direction”

“Almost a quarter of the competitions in our discipline were canceled this season. The first race was canceled on December 10 and it is now early March, but again they say that the FIS has not found time to replace them, which sounds strange since slalom is not the most difficult discipline in terms of organization. Marchant calls this scenario a big joke! “You invest so much money, time and energy in this sport and then you have to watch the FIS just give up. It’s hard for me to see such a beautiful sport going in such a wrong direction.”

Daniel Yule accused the FIS crew of negligent behavior in December after a slalom in Val-d’Isère could not be held despite fresh snow and low temperatures. “I believe that this rejection is not inconvenient for the FIS officials. After the cancellation of the speed races in Zermatt and Beaver Creek, they should have nothing against the fact that a slalom can now be canceled so that a balance can be achieved between the speed and technical specialists in the battle for the overall World Cup,” said the most successful Swiss slalom rider at Blick at the time.

Will a legendary Swiss track become an option again?

But what can FIS race director Markus Waldner’s team do if there simply isn’t enough snow in Slovenia in March? “It was not only known for a week that there was a lack of snow in Kranjska Gora. And perhaps a replacement location would have been found if the search had started earlier,” says Yule. For the winner of seven World Cup slaloms, one thing is certain: “Because a place like Kranjska Gora is only 805 meters above sea level and the chance of there being enough snow at this altitude in March becomes smaller every year, the FIS must pay attention for this “That in the future, at the end of the season, only World Cup stations where races can be held on northern slopes at a decent altitude will be taken into account.”

In this context, Yule also thinks of a legendary ski area in Lower Valais: “In Veysonnaz, the conditions for a World Cup race would be perfect even in March!” The last World Cup slalom for men to date was held in 1998 in Veysonnaz, located above Sion at 1,250 meters. The Austrian Thomas Stangassinger was victorious at the time, ahead of the Icelander Kristinn Bjornsson and the Japanese Kiminobu Kimura.

Source : Blick